Coming Over – Edith Milton

Edith Milton - ????

Displaced.

I’ve been lucky in this life so far as to have never been forcibly displaced from my home.

There are plenty though in this world that have, and are, and will. It’s one thing when something like a flood or fire takes away your home, you can be angry and upset, but can you really gain the needed satisfaction of getting angry at a flood?

When a man or groups of men, or a government displaces you, then you have something, someone to direct your anger towards – that can feel it.

Now, if it impacts them, that’s another story.

Milton knows what it feels like to be displaced, and it shows through her story. Displaced not only physically – but psychologically.

It’s the psychological displacement that I can, and I think most people can relate to. I would venture to say that a great number of people feel displaced psychologically at one time in their life.

Milton’s story takes place on a ship crossing the Atlantic.

I spent some time on a ship once, and it happened to be during a period in my life when I was going through a mental displacement.

I was on the Volga River traveling between Volgograd and Astrakhan Russia. As companions, I had Germans, Dutch, English, Japanese, French, Americans and of course Russians both sexes well represented in all of the nationalities.

We drank, we danced, we smoked, and we sat on the deck chairs and tried to impress the girls with our “personalities”.

Time on that ship was spent discovering limits and boundaries – not only in others but within ourselves.

Some of us sought to create new identities but the realization that doing so is far more difficult than ever imagined.

The close quarters, and the anonymity that the closure of our trip would soon allow us - brought down the walls of civility, courtesies and behavior that existed on shore.

It’s as if we were free of the burdens of our lives for the voyage.

We forgot to sleep knowing that any time doing so would be wasted. I had to stay awake as to fill each hour with meaning and adventure.

I learned a lot about people on the ship and a lot about myself.

My displacement was a good thing, and allowed for growth.

I was forever changed after that trip down the Volga.

our ship

Harmony of the World – Charles Baxter

Charles Baxter - May 13, 1947

I don’t know if it would be considered a complement or an insult to say that I felt like this short story was a novel.

I’d like to think it would be taken as a compliment. Baxter’s ability to pack just the right amount of “everything” into this short- gave it such thickness and substance that my brain felt as if it had just consumed a novel.

Have I ever been sooooo passionate about something as to drive someone away?

No, I can confidently say that although I am passionate and a bit crazy, I know humans have certain boundaries and limits and most importantly edges that you can’t push them over.

I think it comes down to a level of respect for others.

I really try my best to respect people, and I’m genuinely concerned about their feelings.

At times, I may talk the talk of a heartless bastard – but, in reality, I’m soft.

The problem is – the characteristic that gets me into trouble the most with others – the one thing about me that drives others insane – especially those closest to me, is that I am a bit too self-centered.

Ya think?!!

Perhaps this is due to my constant self-assessment sessions that I put myself through.

Perhaps it is due to the divorce all those years ago and the years after struggling with my identity.

Who knows- I can blame any number of things.

The good thing is that I am aware of this and awareness is the key!

The Gift Horse’s Mouth – R.E. Smith

R.E. Smith – no info on this author

A nice grisly story about summoning the intestinal fortitude to carry out a task beyond what you yourself could ever imagine doing.

You know, like cutting the head off a horse.

It’s amazing what a person can transform themselves into when a loved one is injured or just slighted.

I don’t feel the need to relate any stories of past cases where I have undertaken a deed thought to be “unsettling” one moment and completely within my realm of doing the next. – It has happened quite often with me. –

-Well not cutting heads off horses.

The Power of Language is Such That Even a Single Word Taken Truly to Heart Can Change Everything – Alvin Greenberg

Alvin Greenberg - May 10, 1932 – Alive and still writing

Wild pigs and the slight possibility that they have the ability to write.

Hummmm- OK, I’ll bite, chew and yup – I like it.

I have a problem. I have the strong suspicion that I sound crazy when I speak.

Crazy, stupid and not “all there”.

I’ve run this thought across M, and she assures me that in fact, I’m mistaken, and that I don’t sound like an idiot 99.99% of the time that I open my mouth.

Even with that assurance, I am very self conscious about the way I use words even if I think I use them correctly. But, I don’t think I have the ability to put them together correctly. I think that I have them in my basket; I just can’t sort them out into a sentence or thought that really conveys what I want to say.

In short – I don’t like the way I talk, and I think I sound unintelligent.

I’m about 3% away from actually being labeled intelligent...but not quite there. And I’ll never gain that mysterious 3%.

How do I listen, or interpret what is said to me?

Well, I do take about everything that is said to me to heart – at least for the first few seconds that it bounces around in my brain. I pass it though a filter, and I am able to distill out what I need to hold close and what I need to let go (which I can never really do).

Not all that surprising- I take a lot to my heart. I really value what a person says to me, and I feel that my reactions to what was said are solidly based on their utterance – rather than my own well developed opinion.

It takes a good while for me to develop an opinion. I need time to really absorb all the information that I can and to put it into my crazy order – only to, yet again, sound stupid.

I hear others in my circle of acquaintances speak, and they are very well spoken, and I just don’t match up to them. This intimidates me further.

So, words that are spoken to me or about me are very important. I give them great weight.

I don’t think there are enough people that truly take what is said to them to heart.

It’s unfortunate – but makes life interesting - maybe.

The Café de Paris – Roberta Gupta

Roberta Gupta – Found it difficult to find ANYTHING on this author.

The one little nugget that I did find gave further weight to the selection process that was “undertaken” by Gardner when he bore the weight of making selections for the BASS 1982.

The shot below is from the book – “Conversations with John Gardner” and is from the Washington Post profile of Gardner by Curt Suplee in 1982.

So, another “Gardner Person” neatly tucked away in the collection.

Fine.

I know I may seem to be going beyond being obsessive concerning this whole affair, but what I have done, is created this wonderful little game for myself where I simply have to find the connection between Gardner and the current author that I’m reading. It’s really not that difficult but as I mentioned in a previous post, I doubt the casual reader in 1982 would be able to make the connections that I have today (thanks Googles!).

The story-

This one took a few pages to get into, but once I did I found it quite readable.

I was almost in a position similar to the narrator of this story. Fortunate enough for me, I didn’t have to return to the Café looking for a love that I had discarded only to find that love missing.

I lost my mind for about a week back in 2000. I bailed out of “my reality” for awhile and part of bailing out was to discard the woman I loved and to tell her that what we had was finished.

I was under an extreme amount of stress, and the only way I was able to deal with it was to sever all ties to the life that I had been living.

I had every intention of walking away from a very important stage of my life.

I was one sentence, one signature from ending something that I knew I had to finish...but I just couldn’t find the strength to.

It was through the guidance of a good friend and a caring supervisor who calmly laid out the repercussions of what I was about to do, and in doing so, they talked me away from the edge.

Once away from the edge, I needed to decompress, and that took about a week. In that week, I found within me what needed to be done to complete my work.

But I had left someone very important to me crushed and bleeding in my wake.

When I returned to “my reality”, I was able to resume my life pretty much as I had left it. People who were impacted were told to “understand”...and they did.

Except for her. And, I can’t fault her for that. We were involved in a different way.

I walked back to that Café, and she was there. She waited for me. But the damage I did will last a lifetime.

I imagine that from time to time she wonders if I’ll ever check out of “my reality” again. I left a scar on her that is quite visible and a little deviation in my behavior can cause the old pain of that scar to flare up.

I think back to that week from time to time and wonder what would have happened if things turned out differently. I know for a FACT that I would not have the life that I do today.

It saddens me to think of what my life would have been...because I doubt that I would be as content as I am now.

I’m a lucky man to find a woman that waited, and one that waits for me day after day.

The Continental Heart – Lissa McLaughlin

Lissa McLaughlin – alive and doing quite well.

Well, it appears that we have a story from someone who is not a “Gardner Person”.

In his introduction to the BASS 1982, Gardner states that this story could be classified as unconventional fiction and as “powerful”.

I had a difficult time with this story when I first read it. Even after a re-read, it still leaves me a bit perplexed. This though is a beautiful thing. We don’t need to understand everything on its surface. Sometimes meanings come to us between the lines.

I think this is another story that was perfect for its time (1981). I’m not saying that it’s not relevant today...I’d argue that it can stand stronger today... in our world –.

2010

There are times, and these occur pretty often in my life, when the sun is at a certain angle in the sky, or the wind hits my face from a certain direction at a precise temperature, and a distant sound, or a shadow on a patch of dirt or grass catches my eye, I find myself transported out of my physical world into that of my memories.

Standing at a train window, in 1993 looking across the endless fields of southern Russia wondering if this is “home”.

Standing at another train window in northern Romania in 2000 wondering if running away from the woman that I love was the right thing to do.

Glancing out the window of my dorm room in Negresti and seeing her walking to me.

Sitting on a shady park bench in Romania in 1998 where I struggled to put my feelings into words in a letter home as tears welled in my eyes.

Watching a bee work from clover flower to clover flower as I sit on that same park bench in 1999, and knowing everything is going to be OK.

A dog barking in the distance – a cow mooing- as I sat on a hilltop in 1999 overlooking Negresti as the sunsets contemplating my worth to this world.

Staring into the mirrored wall of a bar at 3:00 a.m. in 2000, smoking my last cigarette and drinking yet another glass of Vodka and wondering if she will ever love me.

Sunlight shinning through the grape leaves on a cool morning in the spring of 2000, onto the table between us as I stun her with news that will change our lives forever.

A quiet morning on the banks of the Susquehanna River in 1994 – wondering what my future holds – and if I’ll ever amount to anything after a multi-year failed endeavor.

A Sunday afternoon sitting in my bachelor’s room in 1997 drinking my 8^th beer and wishing I was anyplace but there.

Hearing the Blue Danube Waltz played as “hold” music as I call my father in 1998 to tell him that I will be leaving in a few months...for a long long time.

Sitting at my desk at work in 2005, looking at the sun shining outside my window and wondering if the last 4 years here was the right thing to do.

The memories are stirred so easily in me, and these images will never be written over, and when, or if I ever, have my life flash before me in an instant – these are the visions that will appear.

The Dolphin Story – Joyce Renwick

Joyce Renwick - 1942 - August 14, 1995

Well no shit – here we go again -

Joyce met her mentor, John Gardner, while studying at Bread Loaf. He taught her to “Just Tell The Story.” She had this motto hanging above her computer, typeset, and framed in bright yellow. She used to say this gave her such freedom, such permission to write. John Gardner was an inspiration to Joyce and, while at Bread Loaf, she interviewed him and many of the other writers (including John Irving) for a collection of interviews she called the Bread Loaf Dialogues. The Gardner interview was bought by NPR and broadcast nationwide.

http://www.crescentreview.org/Bus/contests.html

Agggghhhhh!

Why! Why! Why!

You know, this was a decent story. It held my attention, was suspenseful and overall, I found it rather interesting.

And that’s about it. That’s about all I got out of this story. It was a story, plain and simple.

I looked for something in to to trigger some sort of connection with my life, and honestly, I came uop with zilch – nothing, nada.

Even now, when I have allowed the story to mellow for several days before writing about it here, I have nothing.

Perhaps I am placing too much pressure on myself to find a lesson in each story, and just to take a story as a story. Perhaps something will develop at a later date.

-I’ll wait.